Enchanted
April 2008 Reviewed by: Rad Bennett Format: Blu-ray/DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

I listed this delightful adventure film as one of the best movies of 2007. Seeing it again has reinforced my decision, except I only wish that I had placed it a little higher up the list. It’s a one-of-a-kind hit in which Disney has its cake and eats it too, uncannily satirizing its prince-and-princess animated films while paying homage at the same time. There is never a misstep that would allow one view to overbalance the other.

The movie begins in an animated land called Andalasia, a happy kingdom in which Giselle (Amy Adams) lives. Giselle is a princess wannabe, and like Snow White and Cinderella she simply knows that one day her prince will find her. She talks and sings to the forest animals, and they help her with chores and dress designing. Prince Edward (James Marsden), the local hero and ogre slayer, hears her singing and goes after the love of his life. They meet and sing a duet, but Philip has a vindictive mother, Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), who sends Giselle to a place "where there is no happily ever after." Gieselle emerges from a manhole into New York City, live-action world of reality. She meets Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey) and his precocious but lonely daughter (Rachel Covey) and gradually learns that Prince Charming might not be the obvious, costumed character.

Giselle brings her optimism and faith in love and all good things to Manhattan. When she sees that Robert’s apartment needs cleaning, she warbles out the open window, expecting her familiar forest animals to show up. Instead an army of pigeons, rats, and cockroaches appear. With her bottomless optimism, Giselle thinks it is nice to make new friends, and her urban critters get the job done just fine in "Happy Working Song," a sparkling number reminiscent of "Whistle While You Work" in Snow White. Later on, she wows Central Park with "That’s How You Know," an exuberant production number of gargantuan stature. Adams is eternally radiant, Dempsey comfortably appealing, and Sarandon evil personified.

The video transfers for both the widescreen DVD and Blu-ray Disc are among the best ever presented to home video. The colors are very bright, without a hint of bleeding or noise. The images are intricately detailed, yet nowhere is there any evidence of edge enhancement. Blacks are solid, yet shadow detail is clear. The DVD is fine, but the Blu-ray adds extra detail in the backgrounds that gives the image a more three-dimensional look, and the colors seem even deeper. The sound on both editions is excellent. The back channels are used with discretion, but when they are really needed, as in the climactic battle with Narissa turned dragon (a la Sleeping Beauty), you hear them. The Dolby TrueHD tracks on the Blu-ray Disc have a little more transparency and presence than the ones on the DVD.

On DVD the extras seemed a bit skimpy. There are a few deleted scenes, a somewhat funny blooper reel, a set of brief production featurettes, and "Pip’s Predicament," an animated short done in pop-up-book style. The Blu-ray adds a wonderful Java feature called "The D Files." Select this option and throughout the movie you will be challenged with Disney trivia questions, mostly having to do with what Disney film Enchanted is paying homage to at the moment. Answer correctly and you are given points plus a short example and discussion of the particular targeted scene. Many of these include pristine video of scenes from Disney classics not even announced for Blu-ray yet. If you don’t answer correctly, you don’t get to see them. When the clips are finished, you’re brought back to the film again at exactly where you left off. The authors don’t quite have this technique down. There are a lot of black screens while you are waiting for a transition from film to clip and back. HD DVD had this down a year ago, but it is apparently going to take Blu-ray authoring a while to catch up. Still, it is a nifty feature, far better than most of its type.

All in all, you can’t go wrong with either version of this movie (I’ve neglected to mention that there is also a fullscreen DVD, which I did not view). It is destined to make my Best of 2008 list and is a title that can be revisited often without growing old. That spells out "happily ever after" for the buyer. Not many disc purchases can uphold that claim.

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